I love the spirit of Acme F&B, the easygoing new restaurant from chefs Colleen O’Hare and Jeana Johnson. It’s laid-back, comfortable and stylishly rustic, and thoughtful touches show up on the table: a complimentary aperitif; filtered water at no extra charge (sparkling or flat); crusty bread that arrives wrapped in brown paper tied up with red-and-white baker’s string; Riedel glasses for the wine.

There’s a lovely patio, a couple of bars to choose from and a general feeling of “we aim to please.”

You might know Johnson and O’Hare as the duo behind Good 2 Go Taco, the groovy Old Lake Highlands spot that features creative takes on everyone’s favorite folded treat, and Goodfriend Beer Garden and Burger House next door to it. There are no tacos or burgers on the menu here at their new bistro on the northern end of McKinney Avenue, more like house-made charcuterie, sautéed skate, braised rabbit and variable “farmer’s cuts” of beef, lamb and pork.

There’s definitely something renegade about the chef duo, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised to find unusual West Coast oysters on their menu (most are contraband in Texas). Order the Nisqually Sweets or Totten Inlets (or whatever’s featured that day) on the half-shell, or Rockefeller-style. You can also get croquettes fashioned from the offal du jour. A well-seasoned steak tartare — a rough chop of fine-tasting beef topped with a four-minute egg — is a lusty treat. Spread it on slices of grilled baguette.

The menu changes constantly, but lately summer succotash has been a constant in the main-course column, topped with a fin fish like albacore or halibut, or maybe skate. The albacore variation recently was splendid — slices of beautifully seared fish done medium-rare with a wonderful sauté of corn, peas, fava beans and tomatoes and a light beurre blanc. King salmon sat regally atop a lovely mess of savoy cabbage leaves and soffrito (diced carrots, onion and fennel). I love that vegetable marriage, though the salmon was a wee bit overcooked. Sometimes the savoy-soffrito sauté is offered with pan-fried skate wing. In fact, one of the restaurant’s strengths is its loving attention to vegetables.

There’s usually chicken and tender little dumplings (your choice of white meat or dark), which tastes like a deconstructed chicken potpie, the flavorful morsels of chicken swimming in a nicely herbal sauce. Braised rabbit takes a crisping turn in a pan before coming to table on risotto gently amped up with leeks, spring onions and fried shallots; it’s comfort food, to be sure.

Other dishes jangle or jiggle more than soothe. The offal croquettes one evening are puffy affairs fashioned from beef tongue and heart. The flavor’s nice, but the minced meat is bound by too much béchamel sauce. Because the croquettes are so saucy, the gribiche (an emulsified sauce with mustard and hard-cooked egg yolks) served with them seems odd.

The charcuterie, which changes every few weeks, needed work, too. I’ve rarely tasted a chicken-liver mousse I didn’t love, but Acme’s version — smooth, runny and topped with rubbery port gelée — had an unpleasantly assertive livery taste. Pork rillettes was most un-rillette-like. Traditionally it’s a rich spread of soft, shredded salty pork that’s been preserved in fat. This was almost a spa version, with little fat and fine mirepoix (diced carrots, onions and celery). The liver mousse and rillettes were accompanied by a sharp cow’s milk cheese that was lovely on its own, but terrible with the charcuterie.

One of the salads, grilled asparagus tarted up with big chunks of roasted- then-pickled beets intense enough to make you pucker, jangles in a not-entirely unpleasant way. What makes it nearly work is a generous smattering of roughly chopped, perfectly hard-cooked egg (mimosa) blanketing it. The egg whites tame the beets into something weirdly compelling, almost delicious. (The dish has since been tweaked; the beets are now roasted but not pickled.) These chefs do seem to love their eggs!

The priciest dishes on the menu, at $30 each, are “farmer’s cut” beef, pork and lamb; the server will tell you exactly what they are. The idea is sustainability: The chefs purchase the whole, locally raised animal, using the lesser cuts for tacos and burgers at Good 2 Go and Goodfriend, and the more premium cuts at Acme. On a recent visit, there was a beef duo: slices of flavorful skirt steak grilled happily medium-rare as ordered, paired with a puck of richly flavorful, tender beef cheek. Tucked under the skirt steak were grilled fingerling potatoes, and a simple little well-dressed frisée salad pulled the plate together.

The midsize wine list is almost as eclectic as the menu. It offers about 25 vintages by the glass, along with a decent selection of half-bottles along with its full-bottle choices.

I do wish servers (not just at Acme, but all over Dallas) would alert diners when the vintage they bring is different than what’s offered on the wine list, but generally service is excellent here: sweetly attentive, but not in the least bit obtrusive. The tone of the service — respectfully correct but not overly formal, knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the cooking but not boringly gushy — feels just right for the place.

And what about sweets? Like the rest of the cooking, the desserts at Acme seem to improve on each visit. Could the topping on the peach-blueberry crumble have been less sweet? Sure, but I love the small scoop of house-made blueberry ice cream on top. And a wonderful Bourbon brownie cake is glossed with a dreamy ganache.

So there are a few rough edges here and there. O’Hare and Johnson are taking plenty of risks; they seem to be having fun in the kitchen, and I, for one, am happy to come along for the ride. As the weeks fly by, it feels like Acme F&B is starting to find its footing.

As a serious neighborhood bistro with a good sense of fun and adventure, it is certainly a terrific addition to our dining scene. I look forward to watching it evolve.

Service: Sweetly attentive, respectfully correct yet informal; knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the cooking without going on and on ad infinitum.

Ambience: Laid-back and casual, but with Riedel wine glasses on the tables. The dining room has two bars. Banquette seating on a raised section offers the most comfortable seating.

Noise level: When the dining room is less crowded, easy conversation is possible. When the restaurant’s busy, cacophony reigns; forget about talking.

Location: 4900 McKinney Ave., Dallas; 214-443-0003; acmefandb.com

Hours: Monday-Thursday 5 to 10 p.m., Friday-Saturday 5 to 11 p.m.

Reservations: Accepted

Credit cards: AE, D, MC, V

Wheelchair accessible: Yes

Smoking area: In front of restaurant

Alcohol: Full bar. A midsize, eclectic wine list offers about 25 wines by the glass and a decent selection of half-bottles. A single Texas wine, a well-priced 2010 Pedernales Cellars Grenache-Syrah-Mourvedre — is available, both by the bottle and by the glass.

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